Premium-Cola
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Premium-Cola is a soft drink brand founded in December 2001 in Hamburg by a collective of fans of the German brand afri-cola, at the time reduced in caffeine.
The collective (which named itself "Interessengruppe Premium") started by running a protest campaign for more than two years against recipe changes in Afri-Cola.
This well-known German brand (founded 1931) had just been bought by the Mineralbrunnen Überkingen-Teinach AG in 1999, which then secretly changed the recipe: the new afri-cola contained a reduced amount of caffeine (the original afri-cola contained 250 mg/L), and the rather strong taste was significantly softened, in order to meet the taste of a wider variety of customers.
The protests of the "Interessengruppe Premium" lead to some public awareness, but remained unsuccessful as far as afri-cola was concerned - so they started producing the original recipe cola on their own and named it Premium-Cola.
To avoid legal issues with the Mineralbrunnen AG, one ingredient had to be changed later in 2004 (phosphoric acid instead of malic acid). This didn't change the taste at all, but marked a change of attitude for the collective: The afri-cola brand itself was no longer of interest.
Premium-Cola is not a company, since profit is not a goal of the collective. There is no office, no salaries and no actual boss. All members of the collective make a living by other jobs and build up Premium-Cola as sort of a hobby. All issues are decided on collectively, there is hardly any advertising - instead, art pictures are printed on the inside of the bottles' labels.
The collective puts much thought into "proper" brand leading and acting within the economy, instead of expanding. Premium-Cola is being sold in selected outlets (not only Clubs and Bars) only, whose philosophy must be similar to that of the brand. Overall, Premium-Cola can be considered a brand philosophy project rather than a company.
